Maroon 5 Overexposed Tour
September
18, 2012
Smart
Araneta Coliseum
I left the
office at around 5:20 PM for Cubao.
Melodz informed all of us a day before that we should meet at 6:30 PM in
front of Araneta. By that time, we should have already eaten our meals since a
lot of people will be attending the concert. It was a longer ride from DA to
Cubao as the rain caused a heavier traffic that day. Upon reaching Cubao at
around 5:50 PM, I grabbed a sandwich at 7-11 in Farmer’s Plaza and headed to the
coliseum. As expected, there was already
a big crowd at the entrance. I hurriedly
looked for an ATM Machine in Gateway Mall to get some cash as I had not paid my
ticket yet. Marion initially paid for all of our tickets. I contacted Melodz
and she was around the area already. I
just waited for the others in front of the General Admission Gate. The big crowd that I saw earlier was already
inside, but the line was getting longer though.
Seeing people flocking and hearing the Maroon 5 songs being played
inside, I had a growing desire to get in already. Marion showed up, he told me
he had not eaten his dinner yet so he better grab some food. He was giving the
tickets to me but I insisted that he better keep it. After a while, Donna
showed up, followed by Melodz. I was just too excited and I wanted to get a
better seat. I knew then that the
“premium” seats in the Gen Ad section was filled already. Ekay, my officemate,
confirmed that as she told me through SMS that there were still seats left at
the side. The three of us decided to
fall in line as we wait for Marion and Rizaa. Five, ten, fifteen minutes
passed, Marion and Rizza had not showed up! We just kept ourselves entertained checking
the paper binoculars we bought for P75. More
walks and then, we were inside, hiking up the stairs to the main entrance
gate. Where were Marion and Rizza? Melodz hastily decided to fetch Marion and
Rizza (who turned out to have a companion, Dennis) downstairs. Fortunately,
Melodz found them in the 11th hour! Marion, Rizza and Dennis
literally bypassed the long line. I just did not mind what the people behind us
thought! We could not afford going back to the end of the line. So here came
the entrance gate. As I thought we would
finally be able to get our seats, Kuya Guard instructed us to leave our
backpacks at the baggage counter. Marion, Dennis and I had to endure the
chaotic lines of the baggage depository counter for 30 minutes! People were so
frustrated that the person behind me was planning to shout “ipis” so that
people might just walk away from the line.
In my mind though, I was thinking of shouting “bomba”. Knowing it would
not work, I just prayed for more patience. Then, finally, we found ourselves in
front of the grueling line, bag 1156. Then finally, finally entered Araneta
Coliseum at 8:00 PM!
Araneta
Coliseum was bursting with people! The crowd was definitely bigger than Smash
Project’s concert. Snaking our way to our seats, I finally confirmed that the
“premium” seats were already taken. We had to seat by the side, just below the
Pizza Hut ad, but surprisingly, it was not that bad after all. We had a lot of
seating space. It was not crowded over our area and we could still move like
jagger during the concert. First up was “The Cab”. That was the second time I was able to watch
“The Cab” live. The first was during the Smash Project concert with Dashboard
Confessional. But since then, I have not
really learned so much about that band except, the vocalist still fashioned a
bonnet like the first time I watched them.
After around 5-8 songs, Araneta was blanketed with darkness again, but with chilling excitement from the crowd. The colorful neon sticks hawked for P150 each
flickered around the dome like fireflies. Beautiful.
At exactly
9.15, the dome erupted with joy and excitement as Adam Levine himself sang the
first notes of Payphone! I have been listening to this guy for so many years
and the feeling that I was listening to him live was surreal. Probably thousands of neon fireflies of
green, red and blue colors were swaying to the tune of Payphone. Everybody was having fun! WE were having
fun. Music brought the house down.
Maroon 5 played up until 10.50 pm with a very short break probably to have the
guys change. During this very short
break, all of us were yelling “We want more! We want more!” We definitely
deserved more not only because they just played a couple of songs during that
time, but we need a reward for that very challenging journey up until we
finally arrived to that very moment. (Well, talking about the frustrating lines
at the baggage counter we experienced earlier)
The concert
was also a showcase of what Adam Levine can do.
He showed off his skills in playing drums, as he gave his co-band member,
the long-haired James Valentine his own spotlight. He also did Justin Timberlake’s Sexyback to
the surprise of all 15,000-strong crowd. He sang ALL their greatest hits
including This Love, She Will be Loved (Acoustic), Sunday Morning, Won’t Go
Home without You, among so many good songs from their previous albums. They also played songs from their current
album, Overexposed, with Daylight being my favorite track. The jampacked
Araneta remained on its feet until Moves Like Jagger, which true enough, I expected
to be their last song. Who wouldn’t be hyped with such “dance-easy”,
“enjoy-the-party” sound of that song? I also thought they would do a repeat of
Oppa Gangnam Style which they played in Korea. It turned out they were just
teasing the crowd. If they played it, it would be a complete mayhem. After Adam
finally thanked everyone and the whole band gave their final bow, I was
expecting an encore and asking my friend, “May encore pa ba?, “Wala na, kinanta
na nila lahat”, Marion replied. I was just hoping I would hear another track
from the Overexposed album, which I fot familiar with in a span of two
days. I even tried memorizing at least
one song (which is Daylight), but my efforts were to no avail.
Some
thoughts. Filipino music fans are very responsive. We know their songs. We sing
their songs. We love their songs. Not surprisingly, Maroon 5 is the most
downloaded music artist in the Philippines based on a recent report by
Musicmetric’s Digital Music Index. No
wonder, Maroon 5 keeps coming back to the Philippines. According to Adam’s
tweet early Tuesday, the Filipinos are the “most energetic and most
enthusiastic fans in the world”. I just have to agree. We love Maroon 5.
